>Pardon me for my usual ignorance, I haven't been keeping up with this>debate during the various times it has surfaced over the last couple of>years, but...>>Since I am not Ian>> Alex = !Ian>>...does Ian believe that it somehow follows that we are in fact the same>person? Or can only the sum of everyone and everything in the universe>that is also not Ian add up to an Ian equivalent?

IAN: As an analogy: just as a day has a
dark side and a light side, you have an
inside and an outside, and just as the
identity of a day contains both sides,
your identity contains both your inside
and outside. The equivalence is not that
your outside is the same as your inside
(that would eliminate difference, the
basis of relational identity), it's
that your outside is an equally
necessary feature of your identity.

If we ask, "To be A, does A need A more
than A needs -A?" we find that A needs A
to a degree that is the same as (=) -A.
If we ask, "Is A as large as -A?" and
we find -A is larger, we say A has a
size that is not the same as (=/=) -A.

So the A = -A statement defines one
aspect of A, its identity structure,
a very big aspect of A! We can also
find this equality in the second ques-
tion that returned a "A =/= -A" answer
by asking "To be large, does the large
need large as much as it needs small?"
we will find that the large needs the
small for the large to be large to a
degree that is the same as (=) its
need for the large, so here L = -L.

> Given that the universe can be defined in terms of its>non-Ian-ness, in what way should this change my beliefs, behavior, or the>manner in which I predict events that have yet to happen?

IAN: Taking holism to a numerical level
(expressed in zero mechanics) we find
that identity is conserved, and it follows
from this that identities in natures, which
include all the physical forces, are like-
wise conserved, because every X is merely
a derivative of -X, and every measure of
1 unit of X is derived by deviation from
0, and the 0,1 identity relation is sym-
metrical, meaning that 0 is as much smaller
than 1 (-1) as 1 is larger (+1) than 0 and
the entire relation sums back to 0. It
follows therefore that no measure exceeds
0, where 0 = (n + (-n)), and this conserva-
tion of identity tells us just about every-
thing about everything in the universe.

If we knew only the holistic identity
theory and zero mechanics, we could pre-
dict major factors of the structure of
the universe prior to encountering it,
because ultimately everything is relative
and holism defines relational structure.

Of course I don't purport to have proven
absolutely that nothing in the universe
deviates from zero mechanics but hope
people will test it has strongly as
they consider it may be true.